Kathy Benitez is more than a beach comber.

She's a glass comber.

But don't tell anyone.

Benitez discreetly searches the shoreline of a remote Alaska island for water-worn glass fragments that wash up from the ocean. She uses the rounded glass as jewelry for her store, Alaska Sea Glass Art. She keeps the name of the rustic island to herself, only to identify it as being in the Nome region.  

Trade secrets, after all.

Most of all, Benitez, who lives in Oregon but visits the island frequently because her daughter lives there, doesn't want to be an obtrusive outsider. She wants to be respectful of the island's indigenous residents 

"It's a big thing, and one of the things is never to reveal your spot, your honey hole," she said. "When the native Alaskans see me, as far as they know, I'm picking up trash. They think it's funny."

Benitez said it takes a great deal of patience to find sea glass among the millions of shells on shore.

In some areas, the Alaska shoreline is filled with sea glass, particularly where settlers from the late 1800s came to the Last Frontier for the Gold Rush. Whether the prospective gold millionaires found their booty or not, they drank a lot while at sea. When they finished guzzling their potables, the bottles went into the drink. Once the glass bottles hit the ocean, they sank and slowly broke apart. The roiling Alaska waters then smoothed the edges of the broken glass.

Beachcomber magazine says that one great place in Alaska for glass combing is Prince William Sound. But the sea glass found there has nothing on Benitez's treasures found in her secret location.

While Benitez has an old bottle found completely intact on her windowsill, most of the glass she hunts for is usually fragmented. That's what she uses to make her spectacular jewelry. 

The glass trash of a century ago is today's treasure, and Benitez's specialty is turning sea glass into coveted pieces of art.

"There's a whole wide world working with sea glass Benitez said. "In the 1800s, people threw their bottles into the ocean because they disappeared into the water. Now they're magically washing ashore. The sea acts as a rock tumbler and smooths it. It takes decades to become quality sea glass.

"If it's got sharp edges, it's called chard, and I don't use those. Most of my jewelry is aqua blue because that was the color of the bottles in the 1800s."

Newer glass from the 1950s and 1960s is white, brown, and a bright color green, she said. Old Coca-Cola bottles make their journey to dry land in a lavender shade. The rarest color is orange, Benitez said.

Benitez, who has been working with sea glass for the past four years, said her most popular items are sea glass fragments with small charms in them. Benitez turns the glass into jewelry that is entirely unique. But as regards sea glass, while the charms are popular, she is more of a purist.

"I like more of a rustic look," she said.

Whether rustic or embellished by charms, Benitez is addicted to hunting for sea glass.

"Looking for sea glass is like an adult Easter egg hunt," she said. "It's like opening a bag of potato chips; you can't have just one. You want to keep eating them. You want to keep treasure hunting. That's what it's like hunting for sea glass. It changes every day. The tide goes out and comes back in, and you can't wait to find what treasures came in today.

"In Alaska, nobody's looking for it. At low tide, there's no one there. You never know what you're going to find, but you look for the glass with rounded edges."

The rounded glass edges are part of Benitez's catalog, which includes gorgeous and completely special earrings and necklaces that stand out as something out of the ordinary. But Benitez warns consumers to be careful about buying sea glass, especially earrings. They should not be identical if they are genuine sea glass.

"Sea glass earrings are not twins; they're sisters," she said. "You can usually spot them because they're not the right color either."

And it's not just the beauty of the art that attracts customers; it's the background of the glass.

"When I'm talking to people, when I'm doing sales, when I tell them the history of the glass, that it was thrown into the sea during the Gold Rush, that certainly makes them more interested," she said.

The history makes the glass more compelling, but the beauty of the glass in Benitez's hands is undeniable. 

To see Benitez's art, you can visit her page on Voyij.com.